Need a Vancouver home? Send out Flyers
Craigslist is not just for unloading unwanted junk anymore, it’s the place for buyers to make their case for a new house. It’s not a buyers’ market right now and people are looking to these kinds of mediums to make personal pleas for the ever-elusive single detached Vancouver home.
Kate Whyte and her family recently found themselves in this position. After selling their home in North Vancouver for $1.3 million, they had planned to buying something smaller in the same area. Unfortunately, prices shot up the next month and the availability just wasn't there.
Whyte said that with so few available houses on the market, fierce bidding wars broke out with the winners paying way above market value. One she was interested in went for $178,000 over the listed price.
Whyte decided to launch her own personal campaign to buy a home. She made flyers and started pounding the pavement. "I papered neighbourhoods," says Whyte. "I hung them in the community centre, I put them in the coffee shop, anywhere I could put a piece of paper."
She even went door to door to inquire about people's willingness to sell. "I had a lot of elderly people tell me I was crazy," White says. But, she adds, "I had a lot of people say they totally understood."
This isn’t an uncommon problem in markets where demand far outstrips supply. Real estate economist Frank Clayton stated that these properties are getting harder to come by as municipalities, due to cost, limit the amount of land single detached homes can be built on.
There are a number of people who prefer a house to a condo, says Clayton. There is a mismatch between what the market can offer and what people are looking to buy.
As for Whyte, she wasn’t successful with her campaign and with a possession date looming, the family ended up buying a home that required about $200,000 in renovations. "It literally looks like a mobile home dropped on a slab," admits Whyte. "It's not your dream house."
Image Courtesy of Adobe Stock